But would Glitter Strip detective-turned-private eye Mick Featherstone change a thing about the way he gets the job done?

Probably not.

In his first interview in more than 20 years, the 57-year-old opens up about the alleged kidnap plot involving ex-AFL player turned Schoolies founder Tony Smith, Clive Palmer media adviser Andrew Crook and a Queensland banking executive; a bank cover-up; the night he found his wife Zoei Charissa Keong dead at their Gold Coast home; and how he vows to clear his name — again — over an alleged multimillion-dollar boiler-room scam police say involved his son Zach, Mongols bikie Nick “The Knife” Forbes and Married At First Sight star Daniel Webb.

CLEARED OF KIDNAPPING

The Gold Coast Bulletin met with Mr Featherstone days after charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice and attempted fraud were dropped in Brisbane Magistrates Court.

They were laid almost six years ago.

Mr Featherstone, Mr Smith and Mr Crook were accused of luring Mr Smith’s NAB personal banker, Adam Gazal, to the Indonesian island of Batam in 2013 for an interview for a high-paying job with the billionaire Mr Palmer’s latest mining venture.

There is no suggestion Mr Palmer was involved in the plot.

Police alleged Mr Smith confronted Mr Gazal and forced him to record a confession that he had lied during a $68 million civil lawsuit mounted by Mr Smith against the NAB in 2012 after he lost his first fortune, including an unfinished mega-mansion on the Gold Coast’s “Millionaires Row” at Mermaid Beach.

But Mr Featherstone says Mr Gazal was never forced into anything and he told the truth willingly.

“That was a good feeling to have them withdrawn … I always knew from day one when I was handcuffed and taken away and locked up and put before the court … that they would see how ridiculous the situation is,” Mr Featherstone says.

“What’s frustrating is there is a perception that this is over but it’s not over.

“What Smith and I and Crook were perceived to be guilty of, the only thing we say we were guilty of is that all we wanted to do was get the truth from NAB and we’re not going away. We are going to still pursue that.”

Mr Smith hired Mr Featherstone to help with the sting on Mr Gazal because he wanted to know the truth, the Gold Coast private eye says.

He told the Bulletin the charges were dropped after Mr Gazal refused to give evidence in the case.

Mr Featherstone believes NAB may have put pressure on Mr Gazal to withdraw his complaint because it did not want confidential banking documents to be viewed by he and Mr Smith, who had won an application to have them disclosed to the court.

He says the documents, which contained interviews with NAB staff about Mr Gazal’s dealings with Mr Smith, were lodged in court but removed from the registry before any parties were able to view them.

“What was in those records that they didn’t want us to see?” Mr Featherstone says.

“What did they have to hide?

“My message to NAB is why don’t you let your staff tell the truth about the matter?”
A spokesman for NAB said the decision to withdraw charges was a matter for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
“The bank did not ask any parties to withdraw charges,” he said. “We continue to support our employees involved in this matter.”
The DPP would not comment about why the prosecution against all three was discontinued, only to say: “On the basis of the evidence currently available to prosecute this matter we exercised a discretion to not proceed with the prosecution”.

Mr Smith’s claim against NAB was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Queensland in August 2012.

BOIL ER ROOM CHARGES AND ZOEI

Sitting in his northern Gold Coast home on a weekday afternoon, Mr Featherstone cracks a beer.

He’s been up to court in Brisbane for a mention of the fraud offences he is now fighting without a lawyer after Legal Aid Queensland decided to withdraw his defence funding, telling a court Featherstone was living above his means.

But his house is modest, for someone accused by police of ripping off money.

Mr Featherstone says prosecutors still haven’t told him exactly what they claim he did in relation to the alleged scam, which he was charged over in 2016.

He argues he was simply engaged by companies selling betting software to manage customer complaints.
“We are strenuously and vigorously defending this and we will right the end,” Mr Featherstone says.

Inside his house, the walls are lined with pictures of his three kids.

It’s the same house where Mr Featherstone found his wife Zoei dead two years ago after he returned from church on Christmas Eve.

Her death was not considered suspicious.

Zoei had also been accused of fraud.

A friend of the family at the time of her death said she had “endured cruel mental torture at the hands of our failing justice system”.

Mr Featherstone says that’s true, the weight of the criminal proceedings wore his wife down.

“It’s hard for me to really even talk about her but I was able to handle it (being charged) better because I know the system, but a lot of people who don’t know the system, they suffer tremendously … a lot of people just see it as the end when they get charged,” he says.

“All the conditions like reporting to a police station, that causes people anxiety. They feel like they are already in the system. Things like having their passport taken from them make them feel like they're already in prison.

“She struggled tremendously. Even the impact of the damage to her name was enough to just crush her.”

While Mr Featherstone says he’s still a Catholic like his mum and dad raised him, the past two years have left him questioning his faith.

“I mean, I still have my faith, but I’m probably a little bit angry that all these things happen, you now? I felt like they shouldn’t have happened. You come from church on Christmas Eve and then that happens … but others would say well this is God testing you and this is a test of your faith and you know, I don’t know so much.”

Mr Featherstone has done plenty of soul-searching since Zoei’s death.

“I think as the head of the family you have to lead by example and you’ve got to get off the couch and soldier on.”

WORK, CROOKS AND THE CCC

Mr Featherstone’s private investigator licence was suspended as a result of criminal allegations made against him in relation to the alleged kidnapping plot.

But through Phoenix Global he has still been able to make a living doing risk-assessments and other activities.
Before starting up the risk advisory firm, Mr Featherstone was a detective on the Glitter Strip.

“I joined the cops for the same reason that every other police officer joined … to lock up crooks,” he says.

“And for 16 years, it was like heroin for me. I was a junkie completely addicted to it.”

After working across the state, Mr Featherstone began locking up crooks at Surfers Paradise.

“Every day was sort of sex, drugs and rock and roll,” he says.

“For that whole time I was there, I was obsessed by the job. Every day was dark sunnies on, smash down doors and catch armed robbers.”

But by 1994 he had become “bewildered” with the system.

“Like most cops, I was disillusioned, I guess.”
It was his fifth year working at Surfers and allegations began to surface, including an unsubstantiated complaint from drug trafficker Mark Raymond Jacobs that Mr Featherstone had stolen $21,000 found buried in pipes in a Sorrento backyard.

Jacobs was jailed for attempted murder and trafficking heroin.

“A couple of years later after he pleaded, they announced this Carter Inquiry and he does what most crooks do, says ‘I can get out quick if I help the CCC’,” Mr Featherstone says of the ordeal.

“I actually thought at the time the allegations are so hideous I laughed about it.”

But Mr Featherstone says he didn’t begrudge anyone for investigating the matter.

“The CCC don’t find their informants in a church, they find them in the deepest, darkest dirtiest holes.”

Mr Featherstone says even after the charges relating to the kidnapping plot were withdrawn, there is reputational damage that cannot be undone.

“I know plenty of other blokes that are in the same boat and ultimately you’ve just got to get on with it and put it behind you,” he says.

“If your whole life is about reputation, it’s pretty piss-weak isn’t it?”

Earlier in the interview he opined: “In anything, there is good and bad, it’s a narrow view to classify people.”